Boko Haram releases nearly 200 hostages
January 25, 2015
Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram has freed 192 hostages, mostly women, local and state officials confirmed on Saturday. They were sent back to their community in the northeastern state of Yobe, where 218 women and children were abducted earlier this month.
They were taken in government custody shortly after, as most of their homes were set ablaze when the terrorists struck their town.
Boko Haram, which is trying to establish an Islamic State in the north of Nigeria, attacked the village of Katarko in Yobe on January 6, allegedly in retaliation over a raid conducted by local hunters and vigilantes. Many militants were killed and scores arrested, the vigilantes said at the time.
One of the survivors told a Reuters reporter they were released for refusing to follow the rules of the group.
"They say, since you have refused to accept our mode of religious teachings, go and follow your 'infidels, we hereby order you to leave," the woman said.
Mass abduction has been a common feature of Boko Haram's bloody five-year insurgency, with women often forced to become the wives of Islamists and young boys conscripted to fight alongside them. Of the over 200 people taken in Yobe, around 20 boys were not released.
The jihadist group's policy of abduction became the subject of global headlines last year, when they seized 276 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok, in Borno state. Fifty-seven managed to escape but 219 are still being held.
es/sms (AFP, Reuters)